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Kill Me, Heal Me Ep 1-2 Recap

At Club K-Drama we strive to bring you nothing but the latest recaps of Korean dramas featuring people with fucked up mental issues, so on that note I started watching, “Kill Me, Heal me.”

As usual I went into this knowing next to nothing except the main character has multiple personality disorder, just like another drama we’re watching. In fact there’s even controversy surrounding the two dramas as the, “Jekyll, Hyde, Me” creator has accused the, “Kill Me, Heal Me” writer of stealing his idea. Of course that’s a little stupid considering the idea was already unoriginal, but I digress.

He’s a badass, can’t you tell?”

Episode 1

The first episode had some of the most unintentionally hilarious shit I’ve ever seen including some of the most cringey white people cameos. The main character, Cha Do-Hyun played by Ji Sung is living in the United States where he is a popular student and generally perfect in every way. He is a star football player and involved with the student government. All of the various school clubs try to get his support including the Goats for Africa club, The “Minority” (Gay) Club, and the Save the Alaskan Polar Bear Club. Seriously, that’s what they were.

“Please support the people who fight against the mines.”

However, Do-Hyun suffers from multiple personality disorder (MPD) and the primary one that emerges to this point is Se-Gi. When Se-Gi emerges Do-Hyun suddenly wears eyeliner, gets red tattoos, and has a trademark finger tapping thing he does. We see that while Se-Gi is a violent thug he isn’t exactly evil. Do-Hyun tries to intervene on a white guy beating the shit out of his Korean wife (you know ‘Murricans) only to get beaten up himself. However, later that night he returns as Se-Gi and returns the favor. Because of the trouble Se-Gi gets into, Do-Hyun often wakes up and finds himself in various dangerous situations such as being dunked in a big water tank.

The “Main-Character-Starts-in-a-Foreign-Country-but-Must-Return-to-Korea-to-Take-Over-the-Family-Business” trope is a tired one and unfortunately it’s used here. Do-Hyun’s grandmother is in charge of this huge business and she decides it’s time for him to return to Korea and learn the trade. I didn’t write this down while watching the first episode so I could be wrong with the details but I’m pretty sure that’s the gist of it. I forgot to mention this important detail. The cause of Do-Hyun’s mental problem is a traumatic event that occurred when he was a child. His parents were killed in a “mysterious car accident” and then his house was burnt down.

I can get behind this.

Do-Hyun really doesn’t want to go back to Korea but as Se-Gi he informs his grandmother he’ll be returning to take over the family business. While on the plane Do-Hyun asks someone seated next to him where they’re headed when suddenly the PA on the plane says to get ready to land in Incheon. Once they get off the plane we find out that the guy Do-Hyun talked to is the brother of the female lead, Oh Ri-Jin played by Hwang Jung-Eum. Ri-Jin is a young psychiatrist which is important for obvious reasons. Later on Do-Hyun arrives at his grandmother’s who makes him a vice president of ID, a company within the main company where he’ll be working under Fany’s new love, Oh Min-Seok (who we just saw in Misaeng) who plays Cha Ki-Joon, president of ID.

Ki-Joon invites Do-Hyun to a welcome party held at a club called Paradise, where you can tell almost immediately they have an icy relationship. Ki-Joon has plans to to take over the company himself. Do-Hyun isn’t allowed to drink alcohol since it encourages Se-Gi to emerge so he sits there sipping water. Ki-Joon also introduces him to a sexy employee of the company and it’s shown that Do-Hyun had a thing for her in the past.

This is from Misaeng, but he looks identical in both shows.

Meanwhile at the hospital Ri-Jin works at once of their patients escapes and leaves clues around her room where she went. Surprise, its Paradise.

As Do-Hyun mopes around the club by himself a strange woman comes up into him and tells him that she’s a psychiatrist and can tell he has issues. She gives him a card with the implication she wants to have sex with him. Do-Hyun politely declines but then the woman freaks out and says one of her insane patients just came into the club and is looking for her. It’s Ri-Jin, who sees Do-Hyun and the crazy woman and runs over to them. The crazy woman (played by Kim Seul-Gi from Surplus Princess) says that Ri-Jin is her patient while Ri-Jin says the same thing about her. Do-Hyun lets the crazy woman go because he believes her (it shows flashbacks from the airport where the dialog Ri-Jin had with her brother makes it sound like she’s crazy) and restrains Ri-Jin. Finally Ri-Jin body slams Do-Hyun to the ground and the crazy woman is captured.

Getting body slammed apparently is another trigger to make Se-Gi appear because he does just that. In the bathroom Se-Gi beats up a guy and steals his jacket. Se-Gi must always look like a bad ass.

“Being well versed on the sounds a woman makes while being raped…”

Se-Gi leaves the club and catches up with Ri-Jin. The guy who Se-Gi beat up to steal his jacket was in a gang and they suddenly appear outside the club to beat him up and take back the jacket. It wasn’t even that great of a jacket, but whatever. Se-Gi single handedly beats up the entire gang.

Afterwards, he talks to Ri-Jin who was just kind of standing there the whole time and cryptically tells her she has to “play” with him because she called him.

Episode 2

Ri-Jin manages to get away from Se-Gi by ordering him to turn around and stand there while she calls a cab to get to the hospital she works at. Se-Gi, though, steals a motorcycle and follows her there. Once there, there’s a shitload of forcible woman grabbing as Se-Gi is still trying to get Ri-Jin to “play” with him. Ri-Jin accidentally hits him in the head with a motorcycle helmet and reluctantly takes him into the hospital to patch him up. Se-Gi mentions he hates hospitals.

In the hospital Se-Gi gets a phone call for Do-Hyun and its the company secretary telling him that the psychiatrist they have been looking for who can treat Do-Hyun is conveniently in that very hospital. Se-Gi pays him a visit and trashes his office before threatening him to tell Do-Hyun to give up on treatment and not to interfere with “them”, meaning his seven various personalities or he will give a sharp blade to Yo-Sup. (One of the personalities obsessed with suicide.)

I know that M…

As Se-Gi is strangling the psychiatrist, Do-Hyun suddenly reemerges and is distraught to find what he’s doing. As the doctor recovers he explains everything that Se-Gi said and points out something “notable”. Se-Gi said he found his first love. The doctor goes on to say that with someone as fucked up and violent as Se-Gi is love and violence can be mistaken and that if Se-Gi can’t get what he wants it could put that person in grave danger. Do-Hyun mistakenly thinks that Se-Gi is in love with Chae-Yeon, the sexy employee of ID mentioned earlier who Do-Hyun had a thing for.

As Do-Hyun leaves the hospital Ri-Jin is waiting in the lobby. She hints that she’s ready to play with him now, however Do-Hyun obviously has no idea what she’s talking about and still thinks she’s a crazy person from before. He politely brushes her off thinking Chae-Yeon is in danger.

Do-Hyun meets with Chae-Yeon and needlessly fucks up any chances he might have had with her by telling her that if he ever does anything like try to see her late at night or makes any advances to run away and if he ever grabs her and won’t let her leave to beat the shit out of him. Chae-Yeon assumes he’s drunk.

ayyy…

After some crying and calling Se-Gi a bastard, Do-Hyun decides he’s going to take on the problem head on. He realizes he can’t just try to run away because Se-Gi will always bring him back. He decides to work at ID and begins preparing for a board meeting in three months. Meanwhile, he gets a bunch of gadgets and things to keep track of Se-Gi. He begins locking himself in his room every night and keeps video surveillance on himself at all times. He puts in a room where a “secret physician” can keep an eye him. Since it can’t be the Ho-Pil, the doctor he already attacked it has to be someone else. Someone who can “keep his secret to the grave”… I wonder who it could be?

Later on Ri-Jin visits her parents’ house. She has the leather jacket from the first episode, planning on returning it to Do-Hyun thinking she was simply rejected by him. Her dad, however thinks it’s a gift for him and wears it. Ri-Jin parents seem to be really cool and their house is pretty nice. Her Dad has his own beer tap and everything. They plan on having a meal and Ri-Jin’s mom tells her to get her brother who is a conspiracy/mystery writer. Ri-Jin goes to his room and looks around before seeing a fake panel in the wall. She goes to open it and the viewer can see a picture of Do-Hyun behind it. Ri-Jin’s brother suddenly appears and stops her from seeing it, however. Later that evening the two of them talk about issues and her brother brings up the fact that he lives two lives, as a writer and normal person. This makes Ri-Jin think about Do-Hyun/Se-Gi.

Back in Seoul, Do-Hyun arrives at ID Entertainment for his board meeting. In the lobby he and his grandmother come across Ki-Joon and Do-Hyun’s uncle Young-Pyo. Again, the rift between the two parties is made very obvious, with Do-Hyun’s grandmother Tae-Im warning Do-Hyun not to fall for Young-Pyo’s fake niceness. In Do-Hyun’s office, Ki-Joon pays him a visit and basically says everyone knows what’s going on. That the battle to see who will succeed as the President of Seung-Jin Group has already started and that it will be a bloodbath. Ki-Joon mentions that Do-Hyun turned into a different person that night at the club. Do-Hyun gives the worst excuse I can think of saying some friends from American contacted him. Apparently that was enough to change him into a whole new, strange person. Ki-Joon asks Do-Hyun if he did drugs in America and warns him to watch himself because this is Korea and people just don’t walk around doing drugs here. Again, Murrica.

Later that day as Ri-Jin is parking at the hospital she gets jumped by the original owner of the jacket. He takes her phone and calls Do-Hyun and threatens him to bring the jacket back or he’s going to kill “his woman”. I forgot to mention before that the jacket had drugs in it, that’s why he’s so eager to get it back. This is really ironic considering the talk Ki-Joon, don’t you think?

Do-Hyun goes back to house and tears it apart, looking for the jacket. Meanwhile, the board meeting is getting ready to start. After realizing he has no idea where the jacket is, he asks his secretary, An Gook to hit him to bring out Se-Gi. After a lot of convincing An Gook very lightly slaps Do-Hyun. but of course that isn’t enough. Eventually he socks him pretty hard in the guy and that does the trick.

However, Se-Gi doesn’t appear this time and instead we are introduced to a new personality, Perry Park.

And that ends Episode 2. This recap went on a lot longer than I thought it would but I’ll briefly give my thoughts up to this point. It’s impossible not to compare this show with Hyde, Jekyll, Me as they are strikingly similar, right down to attacked psychiatrists and the main character using mediation and relaxation techniques to keep his alternate personalities in check. While Hyde was the much more hyped show, I actually find myself enjoying this one more so far. I think the main reason is because I’m finding this story to be more exciting and interesting and the alternate personalities of the main character are much more engaging. In Hyde when he changes he basically just turns into a nicer version of himself but in Kill Me when he changes I feel Se-Gi really is a completely different person. I give Ji Sung a lot of credit for being able to pull off these different characters convincingly.

How can he?

I’m looking forward to watches episodes three and four. Having a brand new character appear right at the end of the show is a really devious way to make you want to watch the next episodes. From the preview he looks like a more comedic character which is something I think I’ll enjoy. I’m anticipating seeing how Perry Park will handle this hostage situation as well as how he’ll interact with Ri-Jin. If we are really going to get to see all seven personalities then this show should have something to check out every week.